AP correspondent Michelle Faul on her experience of the system Nelson Mandela fought to bring down

Badges of Nelson Mandela for sale in Soweto. Photo / AP

My mother was furious. The operators of the petrol station in rural, racist South Africa had taken her money to fill the car, but would not give her the key to the toilets. They were for whites only.

It was the early 1960s, and apartheid was the law of the land.

So my indomitable mum did the only thing she could do: she ordered me and my two sisters to urinate right there, very publicly, in front of the fuel pumps. We did not disobey, but I started crying and my sisters bawled, too. We lowered our shorts, but…